The idea has since been dismissed by other German politicians, but on a morning talk show, Patrick Sensburg, who is leading the Bundestag’s investigation into NSA surveillance, said the government has considered using non-electronic typewriters.

There are several strong female contenders, including one Massachusetts senator, who should challenge the former secretary of state for the Democratic presidential nomination; spies are being recruited on college campuses; meanwhile, the U.S. government will financially reward people who support TAFTA. These discoveries and more after the jump.

NBC has released a score of snippets from the network’s interview with Edward Snowden (posted after the jump), and one of the main takeaways is this, in the leaker’s own words: “I may have lost my ability to travel, but I’ve gained the ability to go to sleep at night and to put my head on the pillow and feel comfortable that I’ve done the right thing even when it was the hard thing. And I’m comfortable with that.”

Washington is now spy central. It surveils not just potential future enemies, but also its closest allies as if they were enemies. Increasingly, the structure built to do a significant part of that spying is aimed at Americans, too, and on a scale that is no less breathtaking.

There are now many thousands of clandestine operatives, nearly all of them armed and equipped with a license to kidnap, torture and kill, working overseas or domestically with little or no oversight and virtually no transparency.

The family of a Russian scientist convicted in 2004 of spying for the CIA says he and nine other prisoners were being prepared for an exchange brokered by U.S. and Russian authorities. The deal would reportedly see the return of the alleged Russian spies who were recently arrested on American soil.

Federal prosecutors claimed Thursday that one of the alleged Russian spies confessed to working for the Russian foreign intelligence service. Uncle Sam is trying to keep the accused in custody, fearing they might otherwise try to flee, armed no doubt with bullet pens, microdots and perhaps even a briefcase jetpack.

Russian authorities are up in arms over the arrest of 11 Russians accused of spying on the U.S. The FBI announced the arrests Monday, “in the spirit of the spy novel intrigues of the Cold War era,” as the Russian Foreign Ministry put it.

Retired Adm. Dennis Blair is expected to announce his resignation after less than a year and a half on the job. The national intelligence director, who oversees 16 intelligence agencies, had his share of run-ins with the administration in that time.

The former L.A. police chief, who died Friday, was notorious for presiding over a racist and brutal department (it had a nasty habit of strangling and shooting unarmed suspects to death), but he also had more than 200 spies keeping tabs on city bigwigs. One was even dispatched to Russia and Cuba, reports David Cay Johnston. (continued)

A Defense Department official may have diverted millions from a Pentagon-funded research website to hire a rogue band of spies he reportedly called “my Jason Bournes” (as in the Matt Damon super assassin). These Jason Bournes, The New York Times reports, allegedly spent time running around both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border looking for militants to have killed.

Google already threatened to quit China over a network attack originating from that country, but it seems the Internet giant was shaken up enough to call the National Security Agency (of spying-on-Americans fame) for assistance. (continued)

The Washington Post is reporting that the suicide bomber who carried out the deadliest attack against the agency in a quarter-century was a trusted double agent who “lured intelligence officers into a trap by promising new information about al-Qaeda’s top leadership. ...”

A 72-year-old former State Department employee and his 71-year-old wife were arrested Thursday on charges of spying for the Cuban government. An undercover FBI agent reportedly tricked the couple into giving up their secret after they allegedly had been engaged in espionage for 30 years.

Rep. Jane Harman agreed to go to bat for two AIPAC officials accused of espionage, in exchange for which an Israeli spy would try to get her appointed to chair the House Intelligence Committee, according to Congressional Quarterly. The NSA reportedly captured an exchange between Harman and the spy, during which the congresswoman allegedly said, “This conversation doesn’t exist.”

Hollywood has given us many a laptop-wielding hacker who causes explosions, blackouts and mayhem with a few malicious keystrokes, but such scenarios may not be confined to preposterous action flicks anymore. The Wall Street Journal reports that cyberspies from China and Russia have infiltrated the U.S. electrical grid, mapped it and left a little something behind.

The president-elect has reportedly chosen Leon Panetta to head the CIA and retired Adm. Dennis Blair as director of national intelligence. Both men bring a mixed bag. Panetta is an experienced bureaucrat, but he’s no James Bond. Blair has been praised for his terrorist-fighting skills, but he was criticized for a supposed conflict of interest that benefited defense contractors.

It sounds far-fetched, but a number of protesters swear they’ve spotted robotic insects hovering around anti-war rallies. The government denies deploying robot spies, but it’s known that the U.S. military has had robotic flies, such as the one above, since World War II.

Back when the renowned author was in hiding because of a death threat from the Ayatollah Khomeini, he felt that John le Carre was no help to his cause. “The Satanic Verses” had sparked a spat between two literary lions.

The Defense Department says it has learned of a plot to spy on U.S. contractors with classified security clearances traveling through Canada. Though it released few other details, the U.S. Defense Security Service says it found tiny transmitters hidden in Canadian coins.